The Zigzag Kid
by MiserabelReaper
Summary: Food. Water. Relative safety. The sweetest boys I'd ever met. To me, Camp Green Lake was practically heaven.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, so I decided to do a crossover of sorts. I know it's a pretty weird combination, but I think it could work.**

**Holes (I'm assuming you know all about Holes) and BioShock (You don't have to have played it to understand this story, but it's a pretty darn awesome game) **

**PLEASE don't be put off by the fact it's a crossover, I'll explain everything during the story. **

**I didn't add in a whole crud load of BioShock characters, or randomly send D-Tent under the ocean. I just sent an OC to camp Green Lake and gave her a BioShock background.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Holes or any of the characters affiliated with it, nor do I own BioShock or any of its contents. (This is because I have nowhere to put them)**

Have you ever seen a thermogram image? The ones where cold things are shown as different colours to hot things? Well, if you could see like that, the outside air and the inside of the bus would be bright yellow.

In fact, I was having a hard time distinguishing between the two, and I have a lot of experience of seeing in heat vision. Right now, everything just looked yellow.

Sighing, I opened my eyes and squinted slightly as I switched from thermal imagery to optical vision. I bet you wish you could see in heat vision, huh?

Well, I've been through a lot. Heat vision has saved me before. Not that it's going to be any use out here.

I glanced briefly out of the window. 'Out here' was dusty, dry, barren and, bizarrely, full of holes. The inside of the bus contained an armed guard, eyeing me beadily from behind his sunglasses. Which I could see right through.

I shifted in my seat and the handcuffs dug into my wrists a tiny bit. I looked at them, unimpressed. They weren't keeping me here because, lucky me, my muscles have a 350% greater density then yours, meaning I could just rip the handcuffs apart and off of my hands.

The armed guard wouldn't bother me either. I've taken bullets before, from every conceivable shooter. They don't do me any real damage, it just annoys me when I have to pick them out later.

Like I said, I've been through a lot. This is going to require a huge chunk of backstory, so make sure you're sitting comfortably before you read on. Maybe even go and get yourself a drink.

I grew up in a big ol' city called Rapture. I was actually born in England, but I only spent a tiny percentage of my life there. If you asked me where I was from, I would say Rapture.

Rapture was supposed to be a wonderful, modern city where 'the great would not be constrained by the small'. Meaning it was a city without morals, censors or religion.

Naturally, it was only a matter of time before the 'greats' of Rapture found a way to re-write human D.N.A., making it possible to totally change a person's appearance, or give them super-human abilities.

To do this, a substance called ADAM was required. This substance was found only in one species of deep-sea slug.

It took a fair amount of ADAM to rewrite D.N.A. and the tiny sea slugs could only produce so much. It was then discovered that 30 times the usable amount of ADAM (or more) could be produced when the slug was implanted in a host.

That was the start of the 'little Sister' project. I was in that project.

Then I grew up. For a brief while, I was the prototype 'Big Sister', then they lost me completely.

Okay, backstory done. Back to the present.

Just in time too, as the bus lurched to a halt, throwing up a huge cloud of dust. I heard the guard inhale slightly more air than usual as he prepared to undertake the arduous task of standing up. Yeah, that's right, I heard his intake of breath from all the way down at the end of the bus. Must be my super hearing.

I've got more super-human abilities than Clark Kent.

Well, you're bound to make mistakes with every prototype, right? Every Big Sister after me (which is all of them) was given no genetic 'upgrades' that couldn't be attained by anyone else and put through heavy mental conditioning. They had to upgrade that after I broke mine.

I've covered the supersensitive hearing and the heat vision (although I don't know why I call it 'vision' when I can only use it when my eyes are closed). I can also sense infra red and electrical impulses, which was useful in Rapture for seeing security cameras, bots and turrets before I walked into their line of fire, and for not stepping on bombs or mines.

Whatever. No bombs here. I'm assuming, anyway.

The armed guard levelled his gun at me, standing right at the front of the bus, and jerked his head to the door. I suppose he'd been warned against coming too close. I glared at him for a second.

He waved the gun around a bit. Whatever. Like I said, gunshots don't stop me. Instant cell regeneration, bitch. All down to that sea slug I'm playing host to. It's in my stomach lining, in case you're wondering.

I picked up the only thing I'd brought with me, Walter, and sauntered off the bus. Walter is a monkey wrench. He used to be blue, but after years of abuse and abusing others, he's more of a rusty red.

My heavy black, bronze-tipped steam-punk-esque boots kicked up clouds of dust with each step. I hunched my shoulders and scowled at the sun. It was far too sunny! After living at the bottom of the ocean, the light was uncomfortable. Did I mention Rapture was under the sea?

The guard followed me off the bus, gun still pointed directly at me. He gestured to a small building with his gun.

"HEY! FRESH MEAT!" A guy shouted, about 30 seconds after I'd actually stepped out of the bus. What a remarkable reaction time. I quickly strode over to the small building, attempting to get inside before anyone noticed I was a female.

Inside the small building was a man dressed like a cowboy. His angry, watery eyes were sunken into his face, and a teeny-tiny moustache clung to his lip. He spat the remains of some sunflower seeds into a glass jar before turning to face me.

The guard jabbed me in the back with his gun, giving me the impression he wanted me to sit down. Hey, that was fine by me; it was a lot cooler and darker inside the shack.

"She's still in her handcuffs." The cowboy stared meaningfully at the guard.

"Well, I'm holding the gun. Why don't you unlock her cuffs, man?" The guard retorted. Nobody seemed likely to do anything anytime soon.

Rolling my eyes, I held up my wrists and jerked them apart, breaking the chain between the two metal bracelets. Chain links rained onto the floor, their tinkling interrupting the silence of the room. The cowboy eyed me apprehensively.

"Well, I guess that solves that…" The guard muttered to himself, as the cowboy picked up what I assumed to be my file.

"…Your given name is Voodoo? There was something very wrong with your parents…" I unconsciously clenched my fist that wasn't holding Walter. How dare he say such a thing about my Daddy! That's actually one of the key facts about me; if you insult my Daddy, we're never going to get along. And you'll probably end up dead at some point.

"My name is Mr. Sir; whenever you speak to me you will call me by my name. That clear?" Mr. Sir folded his arms, granting some relief to the straining buttons on his pink shirt. I nodded in response to his question.

"This isn't a Girl Scout camp, you understand?" He got up and waddled over to a small fridge in the corner of the room, opened it, and retrieved what looked like a bottle of cola. "Here." He held the bottle in my general direction.

Now, let me tell you something; when cola is one of the few drinkable substances around you for nine and a half years, (the others being alcohol, the juice from canned fruit, blood and a tiny amount of filtered water) you get sick of it pretty darn quickly. I almost flinched away from the damn bottle.

After a few seconds, it was taken away by the guard, who muttered a quiet 'thanks, man'. Mr. Sir looked somewhat disappointed that I hadn't fallen for his little joke, so he decided to try and elicit a response from me.

"You thirsty, Voodoo?"

"No, Mr. Sir." I purposely yawned widely. That seemed to stump him too. Scowling, he got up and motioned for me to follow him outside.

"Look around you Voodoo, what do you see?" I saw a few guys in orange jumpsuits. Nasty ones, too. A few more wooden buildings. Heat haze. "Any guard towers? How about an electric fence?" I saw nothing of the sort "You wanna run away? Go ahead, start running. I won't stop you. I'M WARNING YOU!" Mr. Sir suddenly shouted at a boy, who rolled his eyes and headed inside.

Well, I didn't know if I was going to like it here or not, so why not stick around for a bit?

"I don't feel like running away right now."

"Good thinking Voodoo, doesn't nobody run away from here, you know why?" Because boys are lazy? "We got the only water for 100 miles, our own little oasis, you wanna run away? Them buzzards'll pick you clean by the end of the third day." Oh. _That_ was what they meant when they said Camp green Lake was un-escapable.

That was the only reason they sent me here. The government hadn't quite figured out what to do about me, and they needed time to think. They didn't want me to just drop off the radar while they were pondering, and they'd witnessed first-hand my escaping skills that would put Houdini to shame.

The flaw in their plan was this; I don't lose water through urination or perspiration, and the sun doesn't cause me to dehydrate at a faster rate than I would just sitting around in an air-conditioned building. Now, this camp must give the inhabitants water, so all I have to do to escape is take a container full of water and walk out.

Although, just walking would be cutting it a bit fine, so I'd probably have to run to cover the 100 miles in a reasonable time. Or keep teleporting. Teleportation rules.

Mr. Sir led me into another wooden building, where he was greeted by a boy with slicked-back hair. Mr. Sir threw me some articles of clothing and a pair of boots.

"Undress. You get two sets of clothes, one for work, one for relaxation. After three days your work clothes will be washed and your second set becomes your work clothes, is that clear?" Nodding, I pulled the heavy metal chest plate off over my head and handed over my huge arm-mounted needle implement. For some odd reason, the police had seemed reluctant to try to take it from me. I unzipped my dirty, worn grey Big Sister jumpsuit, unbuckling the knee and shin guards as I went.

Really, once all the extra things were off, there wasn't a great deal of difference between the Camp green Lake jumpsuit and my Big Sister jumpsuit. Except, mine was more form-fitting. And less of an ugly colour.

Underneath my jumpsuit, I had on what looks like a tiny black scort, ending at the tops of my thighs, and a small top, ending just under my chest. I know that makes me sound like a slag, but I'm not. It's not a tiny scort and top, it's the remains of my Little Sister dress modified into an outfit that would fit me, as a dress that fits a seven year old is obviously not going to fit a 5"11 girl.

I put on the jumpsuit Mr. Sir had so rudely thrown at me, but opted to keep my own boots. I folded up my jumpsuit and stacked up all the extras (I just turned the chest plate upside down and put everything in there). Mr. Sir chose this moment to start posing with a spade

"You are to dig one hole each day, 5 foot deep, 5 foot in diameter." A few snazzy hand gestures here. "Your shovel is your measuring stick." Ah yes, the American word for spade is shovel. "The longer it takes you to dig, the longer you'll be out in the hot sun." He paused here and smirked at me. "And that's not good for anyone, especially someone as pale as you. Never mind, you'll build up a tan eventually." He looked as if he hoped that day wouldn't come for a long time.

I am beyond pale; my skin tone is closer to vampire than ivory, but there is no way I'm getting some nasty tan. I don't want one. You know what a tan is? It's your cells trying to protect themselves from being damaged by ultra-violet rays.

Obviously, as I am Caucasian (and a very pale one at that) I'm going to burn in the sun on the first day, meaning my cells have been damaged by U.V. I, however, have cell regeneration. So, as soon as my cells get damaged, they'll get replaced by new ones. That way, I'll stay pale.

"I'm sure I'll be fine, Mr. Sir" He scowled, getting frustrated at my lack of reactions.

"You need you keep alert for lizards and…rattlesnakes" At this point, I was trying not to giggle as he put on his best ominous voice.

"I love reptiles! They're so cute and scaly! And they have such cute little teeth!" I gave Mr. Sir an opportunity, and he went for it.

"You don't wanna get bit by a yellow spotted lizard. That is the worst thing that can happen to you. You will die a slow and painful death. Always." A fatally poisonous reptile? Even better!

You ever had chicken pox? You know how, if you get it once, you never get it again? Well, I'm like that with drugs and poisons. If I've been exposed to it once, it'll never affect me again. Gotta love that sea slug.

"Really? Wow, I didn't know there were such interesting creatures up here." Mr. Sir's face turned purple. He had failed to achieve his goal of scaring or intimidating me in any way. In fact, he was so angry he didn't notice my slip-up. 'Up here'? That would've been difficult to explain, considering Texas is in the south.

Unfortunately, another man showed up before Mr. Sir exploded. He had a floppy hat, brown loafers, grey knee-length socks and a notebook. His ears were sticking out under his hat. His eyes seemed to be looking in two directions at once. Somehow, he reminded me of a horse and a chimpanzee at the same time.

"Voodoo? I just want you to know that you may have done some bad things, but that does not make you a bad kid. I respect you, Voodoo." He grinned cheesily, brandishing his notebook at me. Well, I would have to disagree there; I'm a very bad person sometimes. This is the most sane and coherent I've been in years. With the right provocation, I'll snap back into my Rapture mind frame. And then there'll be trouble.

Whatever. I was enjoying this. Even before Rapture descended into civil war, there weren't many people like this. To quote my dear friend Augustus Sinclair, "In Rapture, a bleeding heart tends to attract the sharks."

"Welcome to Camp Green lake!" The man shook my hand, wincing as I misjudged the amount of force needed and almost crushed his fingers. "I'm Dr. pendanski, your councillor." He didn't seem like a doctor. All the other doctors I'd encountered had been the mad, genetic-experimenting kind. I decided I liked Dr. Pendanski.

"Start that touchy-feely…" Mr. Sir trailed off as I glared at him, swinging Walter up and back to just behind my right ear. Another key fact about me; I have my favourites. No one messes with them. "Give her some towels, tokens…" Mr. Sir muttered gruffly, waddling off.

Yawning again, I grabbed the grubby excuses for towels and my canteen from the desk.

Dr. Pendanski bobbed purposefully out of the building, signalling to me. I trudged after him, reluctant to leave the shade of the shack.

"You'll be in D-tent; D stands for Diligence. That's the mess hall, there's the rec room, and there's the showers. There's only one knob, because there's only one temperature; cold. Your shower is the special one at the end with head height walls." Dr. Pendanski ran through the list of attractions at lightning speed, flinging his arms about at random. "And that's the warden's cabin over there. That's the number one rule at camp green lake; Do not upset the Warden" Now I had a goal; try to upset the Warden.

"Is Mr. Sir the Warden?" I asked hopefully. If so, my work was already half done.

"No, Mr. Sir isn't the Warden. By the way, Voodoo, would you mind taking off your make-up? Not that it doesn't look nice, but it'll get ruined in all the sand and dust, and if it gets in your eyes… " I assumed he meant the black lining my eyes.

"It's not make-up, Dr. Pendanski, it's skin discolouration." Little Sisters had glowing yellow eyes, surrounded by dark grey shadows, like the ones you get if you stay up too late for a few weeks. When I hit adolescence, the shadows shrunk back, sticking closer to my eye, but darkening as they did so.

"Oh! Uh, well…I'm…uh…" Poor Dr. Pendanski. Luckily I don't get offended easily. "Uh, I'll show you to your tent. You'll be rooming with some boys, but we've roped off a section of the tent for you, and we were told you were more than capable of taking care of yourself. Plus, D-Tent are some of the least violent criminals in the camp!"

Not once I've joined their tent.

"Boys, are you decent?" Dr. pendanski called cheerily into the tent flap.

"Yeah, we won't blind you again dawg, promise!" Came the muffled, sniggered reply.

Dr. Pendanski skipped into the tent, then held the flap open for me. The inside of the tent was quite dim, to my relief. I could tell that the tent would smell to a regular person, but hey; I grew up in a city where dead bodies lay in the streets and ¾ of all the plumbing eventually failed.

A Caucasian boy with brown hair, brown eyes and a toothpick in his mouth was lounging on a cot. Sitting next to him was an overweight black boy with brown eyes. I took a second to check out his thermogram visuals and estimated muscle density. Yup, it was a glandular problem. Estimating muscle density is a cool little thing I can do, to help me size up opponents in a fight. I have a whole range of little tricks like that.

Another black boy with thick, black-rimmed glasses and brown eyes was leaning on a stack of crates next to the cot the other two were sitting on. They all froze when I entered the tent.

"Yo; who's the chick?" Smirked glasses boy, while toothpick boy wolf-whistled.

Oh dear. These boys must have been alone for a long time if they find me attractive. I'm tall and slim, but I don't have a great deal of definition. Which is good in a way, because if I did, then I wouldn't have been able to wear the chest plate, and I wouldn't have been able to fit through such small gaps. I do have rather nice long blonde hair, though, down to about the middle of my back.

Now that I'm sane (sort of) my eyes have stopped being red and gone back to being blue-grey with a dark blue ring around the iris. Even to me, my eyes look hardened. Compare me to any other girl, and you'll see the difference.

I have a very closed face. Emotion doesn't show very well on it. I have a grand range of four expressions; if I'm not smiling (a rare occurrence) or looking curious, then I'm angry. My fourth expression is a combination of boredom and looking emotionless. That's what's on my face if I'm not doing any of my three 'active' expressions. Which is the vast majority of the time. On the plus side, I do have an excellent poker face.

The last thing of note is the zigzag scar under my right eye. Normally, I don't get scars, what with the cell regeneration and all. I got this one from a toxin seeping into a cut. That particular toxin was used in the destruction of contagious bodies. There was this huge outbreak of a highly contagious flu-like illness, and all the bodies had to be burned.

But those bodies contained ADAM that the scientists wanted back first, so the bodies were sent through a sort of extraction machine. The main component of the machine was a metal arm holding hundreds of tiny needles in a zigzag pattern. The needles were coated in this toxin because it killed the virus that caused the illness.

_The fluorescent overhead light flickered, lighting the room in fits, just like lightning. The pattering of the little girl's bare feet was amplified as she paddled through the puddles of water spread all over the black and white tiled floor. The only other noise to be heard was the whirring of the extraction machine _

_Giggling, she spun in a circle, her black, knee-length dress flaring out. She stopped and took a deep breath._

"_Rosies and sunshine! Angels is near!"_

_In the corner of the room lay one of the contagious bodies, wearing a ripped and stained dress, disgustingly mutilated, blood pooled around it. But the little girl didn't see that. She saw an elegantly dressed woman with an outline of a halo and wings, lying in a bed of rose petals._

_She saw only what the scientists wanted her to see. Smiling, she patted her stomach and hugged her needle device._

"_This one has ADAM!" The little girl dropped to her knees beside the 'angel', "Silly angel, sleeping with the lights on…"_

_Raising her needle, the little girl stabbed it into the 'angel's' chest. She withdrew the needle and then stabbed again. Repeating this, she began to sing._

"_Good girls gather, gather, gather…" The little girl didn't notice the huge, grotesque figure appear in the doorway._

"_Well, well, well, what's a Little Sister doing out all by herself?" Growled the 'man'. Twice the size of a human and built like a gorilla, he lumbered into the room._

"_Leave me alone!" The Little Sister shouted at the 'man'. She knew what he was. He was one of the ones who spliced up a whole cocktail of physical gene tonics, trying to improve himself. And now, well…_

_Muscles bulged out of his frame all over him, his face was distorted, all his hair was gone and he was forced to walk on all fours like a gorilla in order to support his weight. He was a brute splicer._

"_Aww, don't be like that! I just want some ADAM!" The Little Sister grabbed her needle and backed away into the corner, shaking her head._

"_GIVE ME THE ADAM!" Roared the brute splicer, ripping the needle arm off the extraction machine and hurling it at the Little Sister. She was lucky; only the very end of the arm made contact with her face, just below her eye._

"_HELP ME, DADDY, PLEASE!" She screamed._

From that moment on, the staff at the orphanage called me the Zigzag Kid. I didn't earn the name Voodoo until later.

"Boys, this is Voodoo. She isn't taking Lewis' place; she's just here for safekeeping. Voodoo, this is Alan, Theodore and Rex." Immediately, the boys began complaining. It seemed they'd had this argument before.

"Yo, my name is X-Ray," Glasses boy informed me, "That's Armpit and that's Squid." All right, the overweight guy being called Armpit I could understand (He seemed to be the source of most of the smell), but Squid?

"Him?" Squid gestured with his head to Dr. Pendanski, "He's Mom." Mum. Dr. Pendanski instantly became unfavourited. Who needs a mum? Not me.

"They all have their little nick-names, but I prefer to use the names their parents gave them; the names that society will recognise them by." Dr. pendanski shot me a proud motherly smile.

"Really? For me, society only ever recognized me by my nick-names." I decided to contradict Pendanski for the sake of it.

Pendanski was prevented from replying by the arrival of two more boys. Both were covered in the red dust from outside. One had brown eyes, a bandana tied around his head and the same skin tone as Ms. Martinez from the orphanage. The other was Caucasian with blue eyes and a mop of blonde hair.

"Hey. I'm Magnet. That's Zigzag. What are you doing here, chica?" The bandana one asked me confusedly. He had the same accent as Ms. Martinez, too.

Zigzag? What a weird coincidence. I inclined my head towards him. He just stared at me before walking over to the other side of the tent. Whatever. I was smiling on the inside.

"Apparently this place is un-escapable." I replied to Magnet's question. Everyone's faces seemed to light up. "What?"

"You have an English accent!" Grinned Squid.

"Yours is deep south, right? You sound like Sinclair, he used to live in…Georgia?" I think that's what he said, anyway. My surface geography is next to non-existent.

At this moment, another boy walked into the tent. He was black, had brown eyes and was dripping wet. I assumed he'd come from the showers. He was a good foot shorter than all the other boys. I could feel what remained of my mental conditioning trying to take control of me. '_Protect the little ones, protect the little ones…'_

"Ahh, now this is Zero. Say hello to Voodoo, Zero." Dr. Pendanski sneered at 'Zero'. Unsurprisingly, Zero ignored him. "You wanna know why they call him Zero?" If it'll make you go away quicker. Mum. Pshh. "There's nothing going on in his stupid little head!" I doubted that. In my experience, the stupid ones are hardly ever quiet.

"Did you tell her about the lizards?" Another deep south accent, but a deeper voice. Zigzag smirked in anticipation. Why does everybody here seem to want to scare me?

"Now Ricky, let's not scare Voodoo" Dr. pendanski chided.

"His name's not Ricky; it's Zigzag, aight?" X-Ray corrected.

"There's only one thing on this earth that scares me, and it isn't a few cute little lizards." I stared Dr. Pendanski down. This seemed to phase him, if only a little.

"Voodoo, if you have any questions just ask José. José will be your mentor. You got that, José?" Magnet beamed.

"Hell yeah, I got that Mom!" I wrinkled my nose at the mention of mum.

"I'm depending on you. It should be no labour to be nice to your neighbour!" Dr. Pendanski led me behind a screen set up in the corner of the tent. "Here is your cot and your crate." I stowed my 'towels' and my jumpsuits (Camp Green Lake and Big Sister), dumped my extras and my canteen on the floor, and headed back into the main area of the tent. "Uhh, Voodoo? You're going to have to hand over that wrench…"

I stopped walking and turned around to face him. I could practically feel my face setting and my eyes hardening. The moronic smile slowly slid from his face.

"You've been unfavourited." I turned my back on him. "Magnet, is there a place where I can fill my canteen?"

"Sure, chica, there's a water spigot over here. Follow me." (End chapter)

**Okay, tell me what you think, I honestly don't care if you tell me you hate it, I just want to know.**

**Also, I have a horrible feeling I weaved in and out of different cases and tenses while I was writing, so if you spot a major error, please point it out. :)**** Thank you.**


	2. The living bin

**I'm so happy :) 4 people actually visited my story. Seriously; seeing as it's in the crossover section, I thought no one would read it. I hope you're enjoying it, whoever you guys are :)**

_Today's menu is chilli, string beans, refried beans, garbanzo beans, green beans and banana jell-o…_a flat voice droned in the background as I grabbed a tray, Walter bumping against my leg on every other step from his position in my pocket.

A bored looking boy in an orange jumpsuit ladled some food onto my tray, looked up, realised I was a girl and stood there, stunned, with the ladle dripping all over the metal tracks.

This process was repeated a few times as I moved down the line. When I had finally collected every type of food, I scanned the room quickly, unsure of where to go. I had forgotten to ask Magnet what to do. I saw D-Tent and headed over, hoping I could sit somewhere nearby.

"Voodoo! Come here girl, this is where you sit." Zigzag spotted me and beckoned me over, getting up and moving along to make space for me. I sat down between Magnet and Zigzag. Wow, they accepted me quickly. I smiled at Zigzag. Well, I tried anyway. It probably looked more like a grimace.

"Hey, yo, new girl?" X-Ray pointed his fork at me. "Since you didn't dig today, you wouldn't mind giving up your bread to somebody who did, now would ya?" I didn't really have a lot of choice, seeing as he reached over and took it while he was asking.

"I'm assuming that was a rhetorical question." I glanced up at him before picking up my fork and closely inspecting my food.

"Aww, X, that's just mean," Squid chastised, "that bread was the only edible thing on her plate!" I finished sniffing the forkful I had.

"It's not poisoned." I announced, shoving the forkful in my mouth.

"Are you sure?" laughed X-Ray, before being silenced by the rate at which I was shovelling the food into my mouth.

"How can you eat it like that, dawg?" Armpit asked in disgust. This stuff was gourmet food compared to things I've had to eat before. Nobody who hasn't been reduced to dead cats and sea sponges washed down with blood would understand.

"I'm hungry." I replied shortly. I just wanted to eat all the food before someone tried to fight me for it. Old habits die hard.

"My God…" Magnet mumbled at my finished tray.

"That was the best meal I've had in years." I sighed contentedly, as the whole table looked on incredulously.

"Uhh…so what'd they get you for?" Squid inquired. I exhaled loudly and sunk down in my chair, stretching my arms up before resting them on the table.

"Well, have you boys heard of a big white building, quite far north of here, someone important lives there?"

"You mean the White House?" asked X-Ray, like I was a little slow. Whatever. Surface landmarks aren't my specialist subject.

"Yes, that one. It turns out that it's quite an important building, and the men in black suits don't like it when someone hacks into all the systems, then breaks in, fights off the security and starts fires in half the rooms she comes across." I hadn't been sure what to do when I first came up to the surface, so I decided to, ahem, _present _myself to the Government before they tracked me down.

"No way. No, no way. No way did you break into the White House!" X-Ray shook his head, smirking at me like he thought I was joking.

"I'm a little…unstable. That's why they put me with you; you guys are apparently among the least violent in the camp, so they assumed you would be the least likely to set me off. Actually while we're at it, I need to lay down some ground rules. 1. Don't insult my Daddy in any way. 2. I will develop favourites, and nobody messes with them. 3. Don't mention mums. 4. Don't pick on those younger and smaller than you. If you stick by those, we'll get along just fine. Violate those rules, and you'll see just how unstable I can be." I looked at each boy in turn.

"Why rule number 3?" Armpit asked cautiously.

I glanced at him, shrugged, and turned my attention back to my tray, attempting to scrape up a tiny morsel of food that remained.

"Here. You can have the rest of mine." Zigzag pushed his tray over to me.

"Okay, what do you want?" I asked, cocking my head to the side.

"What? Who said I wanted anything?" Zigzag looked confused. A smile slowly spread across my face.

"Something for nothing?" I looked over at Magnet. "Helping me without question? Aww, you guys are the sweetest I've ever met." That was probably not a good thing. The sweetest guys I've ever met and they're juvenile delinquents.

D-Tent continued to chat amongst themselves whilst I hoovered up what remained of Zigzag's food.

"Nice bracelets you've got there, chica." Magnet sniggered, pointing to the remains of the handcuffs on my wrists.

"Yeah, the nasty arse cheap handcuffs broke. I'll get Mr. Sir to unlock these later."

We all got up to put our trays back at the same time.

"If anyone ever has any spare food, you guys know where to find the bin, right?" Magnet laughed and poked my stomach. Instinctively, I flinched away, protecting the sea slug. He looked hurt.

"It's an instinct." I told him, not wanting to upset him, but not quite being able to bring myself to apologise either. We approached the tent.

All the checking of the food for poison had reminded me to do something I hadn't had the chance to do when I was in the tent earlier.

As soon as I got inside, I shut my eyes and, facing the canvas, started walking around the edge of the tent.

"Uhh, Voodoo? What the hell are you doing?" Squid waved his hand in front of my closed eyes.

"Checking." I replied.

"For what?"

"Microphones. Cameras. Any type of bugging equipment." Most of the boys groaned.

"Aww man, we already have to deal with Zigzag doing this sort of stuff!" X-Ray complained, "And anyway, how the hell are you going to find anything with your eyes shut?" What perfect timing. I reached up and ripped open the white strip of cloth that ran around the top of the canvas walls, exposing a section of wiring. I opened my eyes and turned to face X-Ray.

"It's a gift." He just stood, open-mouthed. I slowly moved around the tent, ripping open the white strip the whole way around before extracting all of the wiring, microphones included.

"Hey Ziggy, you were right, man…" Magnet said in shock. I coiled up the wiring and stuffed it into my crate.

"Well, they were hardly going to just let a bunch of juvenile delinquents roam around the Camp without keeping some form of an eye on them." I snorted.

"I guess this means I can't tell you that I saw on Zigzag's file that he suffers from acute paranoia…" Squid said. Zigzag gave him a look that was a cross between shock, disbelief and annoyance.

"See? I told you there were microphones and cameras all over Camp!" Zigzag said triumphantly. I shook my head.

"No, that is just illogical. There are probably microphones in each tent, but there's no other security device in this camp. Cameras would be too difficult to hide, plus the equipment to record video is bigger and bulkier than the equipment for audio. There's nothing in the Rec room, mess hall or the showers because the background noise would be too great for the Warden to pick anything out."

Silence.

"Are you a spy?"

Zigzag looked mildly annoyed when the whole tent started laughing at him.

"Your paranoia never lets us down, man." X-Ray chuckled, punching Zigzag's arm. I smiled at him. Zigzag, not X-Ray.

"Not right now, but I knew some and I have been." Like little Stanley Poole. But Lamb figured him out in the end, yes she did…

"So, Voodoo…" Squid sniggered, "You like Zigzag." My eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Well, yes, I like all of you so far." Squid smirked at X-Ray.

"No, you think he's hot." That didn't exactly help to clear things up for me. Confused, I reached over and felt Zigzag's forehead with the back of my hand. His eyes widened, which had a fairly disconcerting effect, seeing as they were pretty wide already.

"No, he's within the bounds of a normal temperature." Squid gave me an odd look.

"Oh my God, have you been living under a rock for the past few years?"

"Something like that…" I muttered. Under a rock, under the sea…or under a rock that is itself under the sea…

"You like Zigzag! As in, you think he's nice to look at, you find him attractive? You've been smiling at him all day!" I was still confused.

"How can I find him attractive when I don't know him? I only met him a few hours ago." Squid, by this point, was rolling his eyes in exasperation.

"Uhh, you look at him and you think 'ooh, he looks hot!'?"

"I only judge stuff by looks when I only have a split second to react, like in a life or death situation or something. I mean, how can you see the beauty in something when you know nothing about it?"

The whole tent burst into hysterical laughter.

My hand automatically sought out Walter, and I squeezed him as I frowned. I was genuinely confused. That was the way I had been raised; understanding something before you judged it. Eventually, the guys began to regain control of themselves.

"Here Voodoo, give me your hand again." Zigzag ordered, still grinning. Raising my eyebrows, I held my hand out.

"Ooh, Ziggy, what do you want her hand for, dawg?" Armpit yelled, sending most of the guys into hysterics again.

"Because it's cold." He smirked, holding my hand against the vein in his neck. I clamped my other hand over Magnet's ear, and he shrieked.

"Damn chica, he's right! You're freezing!" everybody stopped laughing to look at me.

See, I regulate my own temperature. The reason the boys would be getting so overheated out on the lake would be that heat energy automatically heads for a colder substance to try and make a balance. So, say if you put a lump of ice in a hot drink, heat energy would keep flowing from the drink into the ice cube until the two were at the same temperature. Obviously, the human body has ways of cooling down so that it doesn't overheat to the point of death.

I'm sure you've heard about how white helps to reflect heat. That's why people in hot countries wear white. The ADAM in my body gives my skin a quality that allows it to reflect _all_ heat away from me. Lucky me, I don't have to absorb any heat at all. On top of that, I don't run at 37 degrees. Don't need to.

"Hey Voodoo, can I…" X-Ray approached, arms outstretched. I dodged him, and sat down next to Zero on his cot.

"No, you may not. I'm going to sit next to the only person who hasn't been laughing his arse off at me." I sniffed, putting my arm around Zero's shoulders.

"Whatever. I'm going to bed, man." X-Ray promptly began stripping off. I headed to safety behind my screen, but decided not to get changed out of my jumpsuit. I mean, I don't sweat, so it doesn't matter.

I sighed in content as I drifted off to sleep in an actual bed, with a mattress, for the first time in years.

"_All right Susie; If Mr. Sinclair puts $450 into the bank, and it doubles every year, how much will he have in one year?" Ms. Martinez trilled. A small girl in a pink dress screwed up her face in thought._

"_Umm…$900?" Applause filled the room. A man with dark hair, a blue suit and laughing eyes smiled wryly._

"_Now then, Nancy, if Mr. Lombarde has $330 and he borrows $670 from Mr. Sinclair, how much will he have?" a seven year old girl in a mint green dress poked her tongue out in focus._

"_$1000!" Again, applause. _

"_All right; Mr. McKinnargh borrows $1000 dollars from Mr. Sinclair and starts a business, promising to give Mr. Sinclair 20% of the profit. How successful will the business have to be to pay back Mr. Sinclair's loan in one month?"_

_The tiny four year old in a black dress cocked her head to the side for a second._

"_It doesn't matter." several gasps were emitted by the audience._

"_Pardon?" Ms. Martinez frowned._

"_If Mr. McKinnargh is naïve enough to think that Mr. Sinclair will fund a business he only gets a 20% cut of, then his business isn't going to succeed."_

_The Hispanic lady turned to the man in the blue suit, almost afraid to see his reaction._

_He laughed. A genuine laugh that matched his eyes._

"_Why, she's a regular Einstein! An Einsteinella. What's her name?" Mr. Sinclair asked, bending down to shake her tiny hand._

"_I don't have one," she told him, frankly, "so I suppose you should call me Einsteinella."_


	3. The First Hole

**I'm so happy right now; someone reviewed my story! :D Thank you so much, _OMGWTFMAN_, I appreciate it greatly, and I'm glad you like my story. :D**

**However, I have a dilemma; I was reluctant to put this story in the crossover section in the first place, because it seems like hardly anyone goes there. Yet when I browse the ordinary Holes section, there are crossovers there where the author simply wrote in the summary that it was a crossover.**

**Do you think I should move The Zigzag Kid into the ordinary Holes section? I'm not demanding a response or anything, but it would be nice to get one. :)**

A crackly, annoying sound reverberated around the Camp. I jumped into a crouch on my cot and then did a forwards flip off the cot and onto the floor. Or, y'know, a somersault if you want to use correct terminology.

Wow. Sleeping on a proper bed for the first time in must have dredged up memories I didn't even know I had. It made quite an interesting dream, though.

I watched in amusement as the rest of D-Tent stumbled around in varying states of consciousness. Magnet, in particular, seemed to be sleep-walking.

Zero, however, looked wide awake, so I followed him out of the tent. Outside, a few boys were emerging from their tents, too. Mr. Sir and Dr. Pendanski were striding and bouncing around, cradling steaming mugs of something. I mean Dr. Pendanski was bouncing, not the other way around. That would've been funny.

"Smiling faces, smiling faces! The early mole digs the deepest hole! Shovels on the left, tortillas on the right, let's go!" Dr. Pendanski twittered, occasionally stopping to take a sip of whatever was in his mug.

Mr. Sir unlocked a wooden shack with 'library' written above the doors. The shack was filled with spades. Ha ha. By now, everyone had made it outside to receive their spade.

"Okay, come and get it. Let's go! Come on Magnet, open them peepers. Let's go, let's go! Head's still on the pillow, this ain't no dreamland, Diddles. This is reality."

Rubbing his eyes, Magnet grabbed a spade and staggered over to me.

"Don't take the shovel with the red tape." He yawned. I frowned.

"Why not?"

"It's X-Ray's shovel. It's shorter than the rest of theee…" his last word was cut off by a yawn before he stumbled and fell over. Squid helpfully finished.

"Smaller shovel, smaller hole." He waved his tortilla in my face in a comradely fashion.

"Let's go!" 'Mum' chided again. I spotted a flaw in his order.

"Dr. Pendanski?" I called. He turned to face me, smiling away.

"Yes, Voodoo?"

"In standard English, 'let's go' is the shortened form of 'let us go', is it not?"

"Yes, I believe so." He looked confused.

"Well, are you going to be digging with us today?" He shook his head. "SHUT UP THEN!"

I hoisted my spade over my shoulders and walked over to where Zigzag was standing before the good doctor had time to react. Mr. Sir jumped into his truck, drove off into the desert, and a whole flock of orange-suited boys followed him.

Hence the need to stand near Zigzag. His crazy mop of hair was impossible to miss, even in a dusty stampede of boys. I didn't want to embarrass myself by getting lost. Suddenly, Magnet appeared next to me, having fought through the crowd.

"Hey, that thing with Mo-Pendanski was awesome, chica!" Yay, he remembered rule number 3!

"Thank you Magnet, but you didn't have to wake yourself up just to tell me that." He pushed a sticky tortilla into my hand.

"You forgot your breakfast. Didn't want you to get hungry and eat all of us." Aww. I'd have ruffled his hair, but he didn't have any. Too bad. From the corner of my eye, I saw Zigzag's shoulders stiffen.

"Don't worry Zigzag, I've never eaten a person." Although I have drunk more than my fair share of human blood.

"Yeah, she's never eaten a _person_, but any tarantulas beware, right?" Magnet punched my arm, then laughed. He had such an odd laugh; like a cross between a giggle, a snigger and a stalling car engine. It sounded so funny, a huge smile shot across my face before I could stop it.

"Eh-hey! You smiled at someone who wasn't Zigzag!" Rolling my eyes, I punched his arm. I decided I liked Magnet.

Then I noticed that D-tent had stopped walking. Mr. Sir shouted for me to 'git over here!'

"This isn't a girl scout camp. Nobody's gonna baby-sit you." He drew a cross in the dust with his boot heel. "Dig here. Now, If you find anything interesting, you are to report it; to me or Pendanski." I noticed that Mr. Sir was very fond of his little hand gestures. "If the Warden likes what you find, you'll get the rest of the day off."

"Does the Warden like dirt and rocks?" Mr. Sir didn't honour me with a reply. And then left. That man just doesn't seem to like me.

"Yo, Voodoo?" X-Ray shouted over. I looked up. "Want some help getting started?" He smirked at me.

I stared at him a few seconds longer. Then I stabbed my spade straight into the ground, not even stepping on it. I stared at him again as I ripped a huge dirt clod out of the ground. After that, I just focused on my digging.

"Guess not…" I heard him mumble. I was irritated. There's a very fine line between being chivalrous and irritating the hell out of me by assuming I'm weak and stupid and can't do anything for myself. What's the word? Might be sexist, but I can't remember.

It was a good thing Mr. Sir told me to dig on the outskirts of the group, because my hands kept shining a yellowy-gold. The flash of yellowy-gold is the result of cell regeneration.

I guessed that most first-time diggers would come away with horribly blistered hands. Bless that little sea slug. That's practically my motto; Bless that sea slug.

I may not have been used to the technique, but I was injury-free and super strong, so I supposed I was digging pretty fast. When Mr. Sir arrived in the water truck, on what I was assuming was the first water round, my hole was five foot in diameter and about a foot deep.

Magnet slapped himself in the head the second he saw me step out of my hole, and ran over.

"I forgot to tell you to wear gloves! I'm sorry, here; you can have mine…" He began peeling off his gloves before I could stop him. "If you put a note in Pendanski's suggestion box, you can get your own pair…Is it bad?"

He grabbed my hands and held them palm up. He stared at them. Then he looked up at me. I just smiled and shrugged.

"I appreciate your concern." I walked over to where the boys were lining up, Magnet stumbling along behind me before standing behind Zigzag.

So the hierarchy went; X-Ray, Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet, Zero. Interesting. I stood behind Zero. Not worth my time to fight for the top spot.

While the line moved along, I sneakily peeked at everyone else's holes. Zero and I were the furthest along, having dug about the same amount, except he had dug straight down and I'd done the diameter first.

"How's the first hole coming along?" Dr. Pendanski called down to me. "Got any blisters?"

I stuck my arms forwards, either side of Zero's head, and wiggled my fingers.

"The chica's like, indestructible or somethin'!" Magnet joked. Well, he thought he was joking, anyway. I saw Zigzag looking at me suspiciously from the corner of my eye.

"No Zigzag, I'm not indestructible." Squid sniggered and punched his arm. Dr. Pendanski filled my canteen before driving away towards E-Tent.

I focused on my digging. The guys probably tried to talk to me, but I blocked them out. This day was like my sample; after this, I would know how much time, energy and effort needed to be put into a hole.

Digging through the sun-baked crust of earth hadn't been a problem for me, neither was getting the diameter done or digging down the first two feet. However, after about the first two or three feet, I had to start lifting the dirt out of my hole, which required a different motion and slowed me down.

By the time the water truck came again, I had about another foot and a half of depth to do.

This time, Dr. pendanski was delivering lunch. I got a sandwich, a cookie and some canned fruit. Oh my gosh, canned fruit. The amount of that stuff I've consumed in my lifetime is ridiculous. Especially peaches. And, just my luck, Dr. Pendanski gave me canned peaches.

The rest of D-Tent congregated around my hole, so I joined them.

"You dig pretty fast, dawg." Armpit commented. I nodded and sat down next to X-Ray, before proceeding to consume both my sandwich and cookie in about five bites.

Yum, bread. Bread goes off quite quickly, so as soon as the Farmer's Market ceased to function, no more bread for me. Same goes for cookies. I glared down at the can of peaches.

Across from me, Zigzag was slowly eating his peaches slice by slice, with a look of pure bliss on his face.

"Zigzag, I'll trade you my peaches for your sandwich." Zigzag's head snapped up to face me, eyes wide in disbelief. "The can is still sealed, don't worry." He nodded vigorously, his hair bouncing all over the place.

"Deal!" He all but hurled his sandwich at me and eagerly held out his hand for the can. I handed it over, glad to be rid of the damn thing. I cannot describe how absolutely sick of peaches I am. X-Ray elbowed me.

"Why does it matter that the can was sealed?" X-Ray asked loudly, treating me to a display of half-chewed food. I jumped down to a standing position in my hole, grabbing my spade.

"DON'T talk with your mouth full!" I stabbed angrily at the dirt inside my hole. I'll be the first to admit it; even I don't understand why manners are so important to me. I mean, I grew up seeing the most horrific things and monstrous deeds. I'm no angel myself. I suppose it might be that, since big things were beyond my control when growing up, I became obsessed with perfecting things within my control.

"A'ight, just chill out…" X-Ray held up his arms in the 'I surrender' position and headed back to his hole. By this point, everyone was done with their lunch anyway, so soon I was all alone. And fuming.

Obviously, the reason why it was important that the can was still sealed was that otherwise it could be poisoned. I would never eat from an opened can. The worst thing you can do to a paranoid person is give them something else to worry about, and judging from the guys' earlier remarks, Zigzag was going to be my pal in paranoia.

Zero was the first to be done with his hole, jumping out and spitting in it when I had about eight inches to go. I watched him head towards Camp, then carried on digging with a lighter heart.

I found it quite amusing that all these big 'tough' juvenile delinquent boys got completely thrashed by a kid who only came up to their shoulders.

The next to be done was X-Ray, although I only had a tiny way to go, and subsequently finished about five minutes after he had left.

I decided to spit in my hole before I left. It seemed to be a tradition around here. I then had to walk back to Camp. Which was really annoying, because I could have teleported if there had been any cover apart from holes. After all, I think the boys may have become a bit confused if they watched me jump into a hole, not come out and yet somehow not be there when they went to investigate.

I dumped my shovel next to X-Ray's, near the 'library'. I had the rest of the day to do whatever I wanted. But one port of call first; Dr. Pendanski's suggestion box.

It was outside the office (shack). I ripped the pathetic pencil off its piece of string and turned my attention to the pad of paper. Ignoring the sections for name and tent, I wrote just four words in the suggestion section before posting it into the box and skipping away, taking the pencil with me.

I hoped Dr. Pendanski would get the message when he found a piece of paper reading, in an untidy childish scrawl, 'Magnet is my favourite.'


	4. The Aftermath

_Hello :) I'm sorry this took so long, turns out I seriously underestimated the amount of work involved in this year of education. :( Never mind, eh. From this point on, I shall abandon my homework for longer in order to write more._

I rounded the corner of the shack, heading towards the wreck room and froze. A flash of blinding whiteness impaired my vision for a fraction of a second.

But that wasn't why I froze.

There was a Little Sister, dark skinned and with extremely curly black hair. A splicer in an orange suit with a green mask was holding her by the front of her orange dress.

Four other splicers, also wearing orange suits, were flanking the one in the middle.

I had to save her.

My hand dove into my pocket, coming into contact with Walter. I seemed to have no other weapons, but as long as I had Walter, I could do anything. Flexing my arm, I confirmed I still had all my plasmids, so I didn't really need weapons anyway.

I sprinted (When I say sprinted, I mean sprinted; If you were leaning as far forward as I was, you would fall over) through the midst of the crowd of splicers and snatched up the little Sister, skidding to a halt ten feet away and whipping around to face them.

I realised I wasn't wearing my Big Sister clothes; I was wearing an orange ball gown. I supposed it must be some sort of themed day. However, no Big Sister clothes meant no back-basket, so I had to balance the Little Sister on my hip.

"Jesus Christ!" shouted one of the splicers, staring at where the little Sister had just been.

"YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TOUCH THIS CHILD! JUST BECAUSE THERE'S NO DADDY IN SIGHT! YOU SHOULD KNOW BY NOW; BIG. SISTER. IS. ALWAYS. WATCHING!" I shrieked at the splicer, truly seeing red.

I could feel the EVE my body continually produced burning through the veins in my arms, supplying power to whatever plasmid my rage might make me choose.

The splicers backed up, kicking up large clouds of dust. That was when I realised I had no idea where I was. I glanced around quickly.

Lots of dirt and soil, so it must be somewhere in Arcadia, right? That's the only place where they have trees, and trees are the only things that need dirt…but it was so bright! And stiflingly hot, too. Maybe the lights had been turned up too high and left on too long?

Still holding the Little Sister, I darted inside the nearest structure I saw. Seven cots and a screen in the corner. I relaxed a little, knowing I must have found the Little Sisters' dorm.

"Voodoo-" The Little Sister started to ask. I turned to face her, me carrying her made our faces almost level.

"Shh. It's alright, sweetheart. They won't bother you any more."

"No, Voodoo-"

"Why were you out without your Daddy? You know that's extremely dangerous. I'm always keeping an eye out, but Rapture is a big city, and I can't always be there right away."

"I don't know where my Dad is. I don't even know if I have one any more."

"You don't have a Daddy any more? Oh, sweetheart! If you don't have a daddy then you should stay in the hidey-holes. You'll be safe there, and who knows? Maybe someday Daddy will turn up again. Now, you've had a scary day, so now it's sleepy time."

I peeled back the sheets of the cot with my left hand, then I lifted the Little Sister off my hip and tucked her into bed.

"Voodoo-" I knelt beside the cot.

"Hush now. _There's a land called Lillipoppy, and living there is the Lillipop! I'll go there soon with Mr. Bubbles, and we'll search the place from tail to top. And if we find no Tattlelambie, and if I eye no Porkinot, perhaps we'll dine on ham and jammie, if we can't find the Lillipop!."_

The Little Sister was asleep by the time I had finished reciting the poem. Now I was faced with the question of where I was and how I got here. Sighing, I stood up, my back to the door.

Suddenly, four more splicers burst into the dorm. I didn't turn around.

I was furious.

"How DARE you waltz into this dormitory?"

"Voodoo?"

"That is my name; not that you have any right to know it." My left hand clenched into a fist, preparing to use incinerate!

"Chica, I'm sorry about this…" Chica?

A wave of water crashed over me.

Shaking my head, I turned around and was met with the sight of Magnet, flanked by Zigzag, X-Ray and Armpit and holding his canteen out in front of him. Evidently the culprit.

"Magnet? But-" I glanced down to where I was sure a Little Sister had been. Zero looked back at me from under his blanket.

"Oh…" I covered my face with my hands. The unknown district of Rapture and the Little Sister rescue burned fresh in my memory. "Excuse me." I managed, before striding out of the tent and into the sea of holes.

I jumped down into a hole.

The whole thing must have been a hallucination. The Little Sister had clearly been Zero, and the orange-suited splicers must have been random inmates.

Thank goodness Zero had played along to some extent, otherwise I probably would have freaked out more. Little Zero…he was too small and cute not to be a favourite, and if seeing him in trouble triggered this kind of response, then protecting him was the only option anyway.

On the subject of thanking goodness, thank goodness I hadn't turned around. My eyes had probably been red. That would've been hard to explain.

Most worryingly of all, I hadn't had any idea that it had been a hallucination, and I hadn't realised it was going to happen.

Which meant I was even less in control of myself and my abilities than I thought, and I hadn't thought I had a great deal of control anyway.

For the first time in however many years, I buried my face in my hands and cried.

And the tears were ADAM. Dark green and iridescent like oil, oozing down my face.


	5. The Trigger

_Hello, I'm not dead :) I'm sorry this took so long, but I had about a thousand controlled assessments all at once :/ Curse my silly decision to take 11 GCSEs._

I didn't move from the hole until much later; dinner time. It's not that I'd been avoiding the guys, I'd just been trying to come up with an explanation.

I had nothing.

Rubbing my eyes, I trudged over to the mess hall. I could hear people muttering to each other. When I passed one group of boys, they immediately fled to their tent.

I sighed. This was going to be even more difficult than I thought. I walked into the mess hall.

In fact, I had thought wrong. It was remarkably easy.

Nobody asked about it.

"it ain't our place to pry." Squid said simply. X-Ray nodded, and leaned down the table towards me, waving his fork in the air as he made his own point.

"If you wanna tell us what the hell is going on, then fine, go right ahead. If you don't, that's also fine. Besides; we ain't your damn therapists, that's Mo-Pendanski's job. You got it?" He was trying to sound aggressive, but I've been studying psychology at doctorate level since I was seven. I knew he cared really.

I looked up and down my table at all the boys nodding wisely at me (apart from Zero who just blinked) then turned my face to my food and smiled to myself.

That smile quickly died when I came to my senses and felt people staring at me and heard them muttering. I exhaled heavily, trying to keep my more unstable side under control.

A hand clamped over mine.

I clenched that hand, my left hand diving into my pocket for Walter before I realised it was Zigzag.

"Either ignore 'em and write off their staring completely, or give 'em something to stare at." He said knowledgeably.

"Zigzag, let go of my hand." I put on my best emotionless voice. He did as I asked, raising his eyebrow. I grabbed my knife with the hand he just freed.

Zigzag threw his arms up into the surrender position, backing up the bench a little bit.

"Woah, Voodoo, I'm sorry, I didn't-"

I turned around and hurled the knife. It stabbed deep into the table a fraction of an inch away from the hand of a mutterer, who shrieked and leapt backwards off the bench.

"The next time anyone decide to stare at me when they're in plain view, I'll gouge their eye out. Understand?" I glared at the other inmates, who had all fallen silent for some reason. I turned back around and focused on my food.

"Y'know, that wasn't really what I meant…" D-Tent turned to look at Zigzag, his eyes wider than usual and his head twitching a little like it always seemed to do.

The whole table burst out laughing.

"Zig, you look like a bobble-head, man!" X-Ray wheezed out between roars of laughter. Shaking his head, Squid got up, a smile on his face, and dumped his tray in the bin. The rest of the table trundled after him.

"C'mon Voodoo, you haven't been to the wreck room yet!" Magnet waved me over, and D-Tent headed over to the wreck room. Honestly, we probably looked like a picture trailer to the people in front of us; a big group of people walking purposefully in slow motion. Zero peeled away from our group and walked back to the tent.

As soon as I caught a glimpse of the inside, I understood why it was called the wreck room. It looked just how you would expect a room to look after someone had unleashed a gang of adolescent males with no restraints in it. Upon entering, D-Tent split up and wandered over to their favourite spots.

I followed Squid over to the pool table, keeping an eye on Magnet as I went. He was talking to Zigzag, who was sitting on the sofa. He didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, so I turned my full attention to Squid and X-Ray, who had also materialized at the pool table.

"You ever played pool before?" X-Ray asked. I frowned down at the scarred surface of the pool table.

_The sign identified the place as Mermaid Lounge. The room was filled with slot machines, fruit machines and card tables with one lonely pool table in the corner._

_The figure slumped on the floor in front of the pool table had its right arm hooked over the table to remain in some semblance of an upright position. Her worryingly grey skin was bathed in an pinkish-orange light._

_She was panting; her fingers locked into the fabric surface of the pool table as a potent cocktail of ADAM, plasmids and who knows what else coursed through her veins, burning like fire._

_Her eyes were forced wide but were rapidly blinking as her chest heaved and everything around her became too difficult to begin to think about._

"_Well hello there. What's this?" A creepy voice drifted to her ears as an unwelcome hand played with the hem of her dress._

_She couldn't reply. So many things were rushing through her head that she couldn't comprehend his words. She could just feel his hands, now lifting the hem up._

_An overwhelming urge to shriek poured into her mind. Not to shriek in fear, but an animalistic screech. This urge gnawed at the edge of her mind, trying to force its way in. It was foreign, she knew. Someone else had put it there._

_Fire in her veins, hands at her dress, a shredding vortex in her mind and a foreign thought trying to push in. She laughed at the foreign thought and turned her back on it. Suddenly, everything made sense, yet nothing mattered._

_A slow, shaky exhalation escaped her, followed by a shaky breath in. Then two more. On the next set, a sound escaped too. Slowly, her laboured breathing turned to laughing. Loud, breath-stealing hysterical laughter._

_Her hand released the pool table and she fell to the floor, before pushing herself up and falling against the wall. With one more unsteady, drunken movement, she turned around and stabbed the two foot needle mounted on her left wrist through his head._

_Blood poured down the needle into the container, which fed directly into her veins. The flood of foreign fluid seemed to put out the fire in her veins. The fire was out, the hands were gone, the vortex calmed and the thought was shut out._

_Yet the laughter continued._

"Yes, you could say that." I looked away from the table as X-Ray and Squid fetched pool cues. If I had given in to that command, would I have turned out the same as the others? The more bestial Big Sisters, who shriek and hunt and do little else? Most likely.

"Aww man, not again…" Squid mumbled. I turned my head to the side to see Magnet stepping back from a boy who towered over him.

I didn't think. Leaning over the table, I ripped the pool cue from X-Ray's hands. Before he had time to protest, I jumped to the back of the sofa, resting the pool cue behind my back. While everyone stared, I jumped towards the boy, spinning in mid-air to smack him around the head with the pool cue.

I landed and simultaneously brought the cue forwards to ram the end into his stomach. The boy staggered back into the wall and slid down it. I spun the cue again to point at his throat.

"What…"

"Rule number two. I will develop favourites, and nobody messes with them." Glaring at the boy, I whipped the cue away again.

It was disturbingly similar to wielding my needle.


	6. The Attempt

**Well, all my GCSEs are done for now. I'm really sorry this took so long; I had no idea where to go from where I'd dropped it...Also, if you guys have any suggestions, or anything you'd like to see, please tell me in a review or a message or something :)**

_The shattered emergency light sporadically lit the corridor with flashes of red. Jets of steam occasionally shot from weakened pipes running along the wall. The whining hum of the flaming security bots was almost being drowned out by the blaring of the security camera's alarm. A cone of intense white light accompanied the blaring, sweeping erratically around as it laboured to track the movements of one figure._

_From behind a rusting bulkhead door propped up against the wall, a little girl peered out. Her yellow tainted eyes were wide as she watched her daddy, dancing in the security spotlight. Security bots circled him like vultures, watching as a potential meal struggled for survival._

_The seven year old covered her mouth with her hands in horror, fingertips accidentally brushing the zigzag scar on her cheek. Trapped in a narrow corridor, her daddy was steadily losing vitality against the security bots and the leadhead splicers that were shooting at him._

_But how could this happen? Her daddy was __so strong__! He was unbeatable! He was stronger than Hercules and smarter than Einstein! Nothing could defeat her daddy, and he would always protect her and be on her side! Right?_

_The little girl felt a surge of anger. How dare these people hurt her daddy? If only she was big and strong like her daddy, then she could help! She wished she could snap her fingers and set those bad people on fire like they sometimes did to each other! She did have a lot of collective memories from the ADAM she recycled…so maybe she could do it too! _

_Face screwed up in concentration, the little girl began snapping her fingers insistently. Nobody became consumed in a ball of fire. Not even a tiny spark._

_The nearest splicer turned at the sound. With an exuberant shout, he turned and began to walk over to her._

_The little girl heard the strangled moan of horror from her daddy. She clutched her needle device closer. The splicer bent to her height. Shaking with indignant rage, she stabbed the needle right into his forehead._

_It was over not a minute later. The father's terror had given him a boost, and the his daughter had taken care of one of his foes. He turned around to see her staring down at the man she had killed._

_A frown was fixed on her face. It was obvious to her that things were changing. The city was becoming more dangerous, the people who wanted to hurt her more numerous. Her daddy was starting to get hurt._

_She couldn't have that. He'd always protected her. Fists clenched in determination, she began to walk away. From now on, things were going to be different. She had a lot of memories from a lot of people. Some of them had to be useful in learning how to fight. It might take years, but one day, she would be the strongest! _

_**No one would be allowed to hurt her daddy again!**_

The material of the screen separating me from D-Tent was the first thing that met my eyes. Oh. Another dredged up memory.

It must have been because of that boy I smacked around with a pool cue yesterday. It's been a while since I've beaten something up for the sake of someone I care about. Usually I do that sort of thing for amusement.

I froze. There was a strange sniffling sound coming from the tent. I was fairly certain that tarantulas and scorpions don't sniffle. Silently, I slunk into the main tent.

There, sitting up in bed, was Squid. Crying.

This presented me with an odd situation. Squid was not a child. He had to be at least fifteen. He was not small and cute like Zero. Therefore, he wasn't within the bracket of people that my conditioning tried to affect my view of. However, he was crying, in quite a piteous manner too. There was a strange sort of shuddering in my spine as the shreds of my conditioning became confused on what they should be trying to instruct me to do.

He didn't notice I was there until I was crouching on the metal footboard at the end of his bed.

"Voodoo? W-what? I-" He viciously swiped his arm over his eyes.

"You know, if someone in the Camp is trying to hurt something precious to you, then I'd be happy to take care of them." In retrospect, I probably wasn't the best person in the world to be comforting anyone. My range of emotions that didn't come from other people's memories? Limited. My understanding of the sort of intricate situations that can make people cry? Even more limited. My ability to comfort a teenage male in distress? We're beginning to venture into something infinitesimal.

"I'm not crying! Look, I've got allergies, aright?"

"That's highly unlikely."

"Whatever. Tell anyone else and I'll break your jaw." I'll admit it; I had to fight back a laugh. I reached out with one arm to ruffle his hair, then did a backflip off the footboard.

"That's very cute, Squid. It would be entertaining to watch you try." I retreated back behind the screen.

Things were a lot simpler when almost every problem could be solved by destroying something or killing someone.


	7. The Consequence

**Eee! The other day, I was innocently checking my inbox, and I got the lovliest review from someone! It was really encouraging, so thank you! I immediately sat down to write some more...and couldn't think what to write. I'm sorry it took so long!**

**I'm thinking of starting an update schedual, so this doesn't happen again. Maybe every friday or saturday?**

I didn't go back to sleep after the incident with Squid. My mind was filled with all the times I'd seen someone cry before, and all the times I myself had made someone cry. The alarm was a welcome distraction for me; I was up and out of the tent faster than you would think possible.

By the time I'd collected my spade, boys were beginning to file out of other tents. I noticed I was attracting a lot of filthy looks. Nothing too obvious; they tried to look away whenever I spotted them, but there was definitely some animosity there.

The fifth time it happened, I strode over to the boy in question and grabbed his shoulder.

"Is there something the matter?" I asked as politely as I could, despite my growing irritation. The boy in question, a spotty individual with brown hair, scowled at me.

"We're all stuck here; it ain't fair if some get preferential treatment." I cocked my head to the side.

Preferential treatment? It took me a moment to realise what he meant. Yesterday, when I hit that boy with the pool cue; no councillors intervened. I didn't even get punished.

A wide smile stretched across my face, and I had to let go of the boy's shoulder to cover my mouth with my hand as I started giggling.

The giggling. It's plagued me ever since I officially became 'Big Sister'. It's a warning, both to myself and to others, that I'm losing my grip on what I perceive. It's completely involuntary and it means that I'm slipping back into my Rapture mind frame.

I swayed, then staggered a few steps back from the boy. That's another thing about my Rapture identity it's unstable, in more ways than one. I become somewhat unstable on my feet. I need momentum. I can swing seamlessly into one action from another, but if I stop I act like a drunkard. Never enough to fall over; just like one of those toys that babies play with, the ones with the rounded bases. You can push them as hard as you want, they'll tilt right back until their heads almost touch the floor, but they'll lurch back up again, never actually hitting the floor.

I almost fell over sideways, but swung around to face away from the boy in order to remain upright. One giggle escaping my lips, I hung my head backwards over my shoulder to address the boy.

"It's not favouritism; it's survival instincts." The boy had a look of utter confusion on his face.

Then my amusement was abruptly squashed by Dr. Pendanski.

"Voodoo? Could you come on over to the Warden's cabin please?" A loud chorus of 'ooooh' broke out from the boys surrounding the shed. The only D-Tenters outside were Zero and Zigzag. Zero looked sympathetic. Zigzag's head twitched a tiny bit and he blinked twice at me. Neither of these were particularly encouraging responses.

I trudged off towards the only decent looking building in camp. Dr. Pendanski bobbed along behind me. Once we reached the door, Dr. Pendanski rapped on the door and stood to attention. He slouched slightly when Mr. Sir was the one to open the door.

Once inside, Mr. Sir sat down heavily on a large sofa and a woman walked into view.

She had the sort of features that could have been dainty and pretty, but they were negated by her eyes. Her eyes were cold and hardened. They promised a strong woman who demanded obedience. As a matter of fact, her closed off face reminded me of what I saw when I looked in the mirror in the turbulent period before I became a Big Sister.

She offered a perfectly manicured hand to me. I shook her hand firmly.

"So, you're the new camper who's causing these two numbskulls so many problems." She smiled, but there was no change to her eyes.

Out of respect, I curtsied.

"I assume I must be."

Dr. Pendanski began rummaging noisily in his pockets before withdrawing a crumpled piece of paper. I recognised it as the piece I put into the suggestion box.

"Now Voodoo, I'd like it if you could explain the motivation behind this." That gave me pause for thought. If Dr. Pendanski had really gotten a degree in psychology, surely he wouldn't have to ask? A child with a traumatic past who constantly lost things precious to them because they were unable to stop it fro happening is most likely to turn out in one of two ways. The child may become a destroyer itself, pushing everything away from it and only entering into things casually. On the other hand, the child may become a protector, dutifully watching over everything important to it, becoming possessive and violent if anything threatens that which it cares for.

I was starting to seriously doubt 'Dr.' Pendanski's credibility.

"I didn't think it really needed explaining. Magnet is one of my favourites now. Do you have a pencil?" 'Dr.' Pendanski handed over the implement, and I snatched the piece of paper back.

"Is this favouritism the reason you reacted so violently against EZ?" I finished updating the paper and handed it back.

"Yes. Is that all you wanted to ask me about?" 'Dr,' Pendanski looked down at the paper, which now had the names 'Zero' and 'Zigzag' added on.

Since no one said anything else, I headed towards the door. However, I paused with my hand on the handle, a sudden thought striking me.

"Dr. Pendanski, you're a Doctor of Psychology, right? Pray tell me; what do you think of Freud's theory of involuntary subjection?"

"Involuntary subjection? An interesting one, just like all of Freud's work. It's surprising how often you can spot it in everyday life."

I nodded once, and opened the door.

"As punishment for your actions yesterday…" Pendanski began. I turned to look over my shoulder, raising my eyebrow. "..You have to…scrub up the Mess Hall?"

I nodded again before leaving.

'Dr.' Pendanski had a very interesting opinion on Freud's theory of Involuntary Subjection.

Especially seeing as no such theory exists.


	8. The Introduction

**Hee hee, I actually got it done on time.**

I was praising the fact I grew up in such squalor as I surveyed the serving counter in the Mess Hall, because it was unlikely that this place had been cleaned since it was built.

I'd already spent most of the day cleaning out the Mess Hall. I'd cleaned the tables and benches, wiped the windows, swept and mopped the floor and washed the cutlery correctly

The state of the place didn't bother me as much as the one who was watching me.

It turns out that the people who serve dinner are inmates who've been injured and are incapable of digging a hole, and they stay in the Mess Hall preparing food and sorting the supplies all day.

The individual in question fitted comfortably into the stereotypical 'thug' role. He was a good three inches taller than me and of roughly the same build as a Neanderthal. He had close-cropped blonde hair and small, dark eyes.

His name was Trucker. He crashed into a large lorry while driving drunk. Among his repertoire of impressive qualities was the ability to carry on with whatever he was doing regardless of injury or what he'd been told to do; I believe this is where the expression 'keep on trucking' comes into play.

That was what he'd just finished informing me, anyway.

It was about then that I realised how bad of a mood I was in. I have a bad temper, and I'm aware of that. Normally, I have at least a limited degree of control over it.

Right now, I was stressed. There was a 'Doctor' here who wasn't a 'Doctor'. I was out of my familiar surroundings. My three favourites were currently out of my site and I had no way of watching them or knowing if they were alright.

I was ten words away from punching him in the gut.

Luckily for him, he seemed to have fallen silent for the moment. I wrung out the cloth I had and began scrubbing at some encrusted slop on the metal runners in front of the serving counter.

While undertaking this task, I surveyed the Mess Hall again. There were windows as well as two different doors, so it's not as if I could ever be trapped in here. That eased my nerves. A little.

And then I heard trucker walking up behind me. Wonderful. He must be a friend of EZ (the boy I hit with the pool cue). I would have thought that he would be slightly more intelligent than this; he must have some idea that I wasn't going to lie down and let him beat me up.

I threw the cloth on the floor in a temper and stood up, just as he said 'hey.'

I turned around to face him, but he didn't hit me. He just stood there and stared at me. More specifically, into my eyes.

I wasn't sure if this was some sort of intimidation tactic; I mean, it's the sort of thing that snakes do. So I simply stared right back into his eyes. They were flat and dull. Nothing of interest. He would never be a favourite. Usually I can tell that by someone's eyes.

We stood there like that for a few minutes, and I'm not even joking when I say minutes. I counted 183 seconds before anything happened.

He slowly reached his hand up towards my face.

I'm ashamed to say, it took me until then to realise what his intentions were. And I was supremely unimpressed by them.

"You can be as aggressive with me as you want."

There we go. That was 10 words. And he practically invited me to go for it.

I took a step back and punched him in the stomach. Not as hard as I could; I didn't want to actually break anything.

He doubled over forward, coughing loudly. I heard the satisfying squelch as he bit his own tongue, and the not so satisfying splat as he began spitting the blood out onto the floor I'd just painstakingly mopped.

I grabbed the neck of his jumpsuit and picked him up, heading for the door. Surfing on the very last wave of my irritation, I kicked the door open and dragged Trucker outside.

Not noticing the new face outside D-Tent, I tossed Trucker onto the ground.

"Not all over the floor I just cleaned, you bastard!" I scowled down at him, spluttering away on the floor. With the feeling that someone was staring at me, I rolled my eyes and straightened up.

A boy was staring between me and Trucker, looking completely horrified. He had big, green-blue eyes, curly hair and a red cap.

"Oh, sorry, I -uh, I didn't mean to stare or nothin'"

Oh? A somewhat civil apology? This boy appeared to have manners! I smiled politely.

"That's quite alright." Squid suddenly emerged from the gloom of D-Tent and clapped his hand on this boy's shoulder.

"That's Voodoo. She's in our tent. Don't insult her dad and don't pick on her favourite people and you'll be fine."

The boy looked somewhat incredulous.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Stanley. Stanley Yelnats." Was that a palindrome? Oh, the quick (and pointless) connections my mind makes for no apparent reason.

"Is that spelled Y-E-L-N-A-T-S?"

"Yeah…" Stanley looked intensely uncomfortable.

Well, he hadn't seen anything yet.


End file.
